Wigan Casino: Northern Soul finds a new crowd on nightclub's 50th anniversary

Fifty years ago this weekend, the Wigan Casino nightclub hosted the first of its legendary all-nighters, which made it the epicentre of the Northern Soul scene.

As midnight approached every Saturday, at a time when most people were going to bed, hundreds of young music fans - who had travelled in cars, coaches and trains from across the country - converged on a street in the middle of Wigan.

"The two huge wide doors would have a queue forming right the way back down the road, with 500 to 1,000 people waiting to get in," recalls Richard Searling, one of the DJs in the club's heyday.

"As soon as those doors opened, there'd be a flood of people."

Once inside, they went upstairs, paid the entry fee, passed through a set of double doors and entered the dance hall. There, "the wall of sound would hit you."

Francesco Mellina's photographs of Wigan Casino are being exhibited in the town to mark the anniversary

The club's cocktail of aromas would also hit you. "That smell of condensation, of Brut, of sweat... It was absolutely amazing," says Searling.

Wigan Casino held its first Northern Soul all-nighter on 23 September 1973, originally starting at 02:00 before moving to a midnight opening. For eight years, the club was the epicentre of an unlikely musical subculture.

High-energy soul songs - most of which were recorded by black American artists but had flopped on their original release in the 60s - were rediscovered by DJs in places like Wigan, Stoke and Blackpool. The tunes found a large and enthusiastic English fanbase, who developed their own, highly athletic dance moves.

"It was just such joyous, uplifting music, with lyrics that we could relate to in our lives," Searling says.

Mellina was commissioned to photograph the last Wigan Casino all-nighter for NME magazine

The Casino's alcohol-free but amphetamine-fuelled all-nighters proved so popular that they started monthly Friday night sessions, where Searling would play the final DJ slot from 06:30 until the club closed at 08:00.

"I'd leave Bolton about half five and compete with the milk floats, not seeing a soul on that 11-mile drive," he says.

"I'd go from that to absolute mayhem when I walked into the Casino with 1,200 people who had been dancing all night."

Richard Searling on stage at Wigan Casino in the 1970s

After the club emptied, Searling would go straight to work in the record shop he ran across town with Casino founder and fellow DJ Russ Winstanley.

DJs and their contacts would often scour other shops and label vaults in the US, looking for gems that would go down well on dancefloors.

Searling himself discovered Tainted Love by Gloria Jones in a vast warehouse used for storing deletions, cut-outs and returned stock in Philadelphia.

The song was the B-side of a single that had failed to chart in 1965, but Searling took it home and made it a hit. The track was later covered by Soft Cell, who sent it to number one in 1981.

That was also the year the Casino shut, and the building burned down in 1982.

Northern Soul has never died, though, with regular reunion nights, two feature films, and fans around the world. It has even gained a foothold in Japan.

Now, the 50th anniversary of Wigan Casino has provided further opportunity to celebrate the scene. This year, the BBC staged a Northern Soul Prom at the Royal Albert Hall, and BBC 6 Music recently broadcast its own Northern Soul all-nighter.

This weekend, Searling is staging a sold-out soul festival in Blackpool. In Wigan, an exhibition of photos taken by Francesco Mellina at the last Casino all-nighter opened on Friday. Another exhibition is in the Grand Arcade shopping centre, which now stands on the site of the infamous club.

Searling will be back on the decks this weekend at his Blackpool International Soul Festival

There are also three new plays inspired by the scene - including Do I Love You by John Godber, which is currently on tour, and Northern Soul by Jim Cartwright, which will be performed in Wigan on 21 October.

Cartwright, who's known for plays like The Rise and Fall of Little Voice and Road, went to soul nights at the Bolton Palais back in the day - but admits Wigan Casino had the best dancers.

"They were like Samurai or something," he says. "They were a breed apart. Sometimes they'd turn up at the Palais and they'd be doing the whizzes and the splits and you'd think, wow, what is this?"

Northern Soul was an "amazing" phenomenon, he says. "It started in a working town in America, with people making this soul music [that was] too raw for Motown, too raw for the general audience. And it spanned the world, it arced the Universe, and landed in Wigan. What's that about?

"I think it's that connection, that soul connection - working class people in Wigan [and] working class people in America.

"And you can't listen to the music and not dance. I don't care who you are."

Five Wigan Casino classics

• Dana Valery - You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies

• Frank Wilson - Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)

• Gloria Jones - Tainted Love

• The Jades - I'm Where It's At

• The Adventurers - Easy, Baby

And "three before eight" - three closing songs played before 08:00

• Jimmy Radcliffe - Long After Tonight Is All Over

• Tobi Legend - Time Will Pass You By

• Dean Parrish - I'm On My Way

All three new plays are set in the present day, reflecting the scene's enduring appeal.

The Social stars the reigning world Northern Soul dance champion, Sally Molloy. She got hooked on the sound after her mum gave her albums and a Northern Soul film when she was 19.

"I just watched it and got immersed in it," she says. "I realised very quickly I was addicted and nothing else mattered."

Sally Molloy will show off her award-winning dancing in The Social in social clubs in Wigan in November and December

She was already a dancer, but says she found a new freedom in Northern Soul, which typically sees people freestyling their own moves while sharing a dancefloor with like-minded individuals.

"It's one of the only social dances that's not social at all," she says. "When you're on the dancefloor, you've got no partner, yet you're all united in your own way. And I think that's what makes it so powerful.

"You never know what moves are going to come next and you never know what move you've just done. You're just in that moment, you're so present.

"But I think the connection between the movement and the music is the spiritual side of it - the music is running through you and it's initiating the next move without you even thinking. You can't help but move and groove. It's brilliant and it's so unique and completely about you in that moment."

Now 28, she represents a new generation of fans.

"There's a young scene coming through - young people in these basements getting hot and sweaty and dancing the night away to soul," she says. "And it's growing."